The former boss of the doomed United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has defended its record after it was branded a ‘criminal organization’ by Elon Musk.
Samantha Powers’ entire department was dismantled by the DOGE as part of Musk’s attempts to trim the fat on federal government spending.
USAID was created during the cold war to provide humanitarian relief overseas and has been overseen by Powers since 2021.
During that time, she said the agency has been, ‘on the frontline of some of the hardest challenges our country faces’.
However, her opponents have accused the department of wasteful spending. The White House claims millions was given to advance diversity in Serbia, a trans opera in Colombia and an LGBT comic in Peru among other causes.
The president’s envoy Richard Grenell called for an investigation into Powers who he accused of using tax dollars to fund, ‘crazy, radical programs and far left activists’.
But in a Tuesday interview with The Late Show’s Stephen Colbert, she outlined some of the life-saving humanitarian work USAID was involved in.
‘The Core Fact is programs that were running, that people were depending on in
some cases for life saving medicine, like medicine if you have HIV that keeps you alive quite literally,’ Powers explained.
Samantha Powers, the former boss of the doomed United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has defended its record
‘Or if you’re in Sudan and you have a child who’s wasting away because of malnutrition a miracle paste a peanut paste that USAID provides brings that kid back from the brink of death, all of those programs are shuttered.’
She also warned the agency’s shutdown will have a destabilizing effect on geopolitics, as Russia and China seek to plug the gaps caused by the withdrawal in funding in exchange for influence in foreign countries.
‘When the US pulls away, it’s not clear what those other countries will do there’ll be a collective action problem,’ Powers added.
‘But the countries that stand most to benefit are authoritarian nations, they are nations that thrive on corruption and thrive on chaos.
‘You see tweets this week from Russian officials celebrating the potential demise of USAID, you see the officials from the People’s Republic of China who are now confronting a serious issue in developing countries because those countries have gone into such debt to work with China that they now want to look elsewhere.’
However, Powers herself is not free from controversy. She was among those calling of the ‘unmasking’ of Michael Flynn during the final days of the Obama administration.
Flynn was a former national security adviser convicted of lying to the FBI about his calls with the Russian ambassador.
He was pardoned by Trump, who initially fired him over the incident, after the president claimed the prosecution proved that the Obama administration had ‘spied’ on his 2016 election campaign.
Powers also faced a public revolt from her staff over her support for Israel’s bombing campaign on Gaza in the wake of October 7.
USAID was dismantled by Elon Musk as part of DOGE’s sweeping changes designed to trim the fat on federal government spending prompting protest
One of the president’s special envoys has since called for an investigation into Powers who he accused of using tax dollars to fund, ‘crazy, radical programs and far left activists’
She was additionally criticized for holding meetings with liberal heavyweights including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations at least two times, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Fox reports.
In subsequent interviews, Powers has described her profound shock at being given her marching orders.
‘You can imagine suddenly in your in box you get a termination notice you didn’t expect to get on a flawed predicate that you’re doing radical, leftist insubordination, it’s pretty jarring,’ Powers told MSNBC.
‘Because there are so many lies and falsehoods circulating and so many claims that people who are not with the program, people are just completely dislocated.
‘And then of course most of them have been laid off so they’re worried how they are going to pay the bills and how they are going to pay rent.’
USAID has been ordered to shut down by Friday after Musk branded it a ‘criminal organization‘.
The State Department is currently working to recall thousands of staff members in more than 100 countries across the world, two sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
The employees were told by Peter Marocco, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, that all USAID staff members and their families should be recalled back to the United States by Friday – though that deadline could be delayed.
